Anthroyd
Professor
- 211
- Posts
- 8
- Years
- United States
- Seen Nov 14, 2024
Good afternoon everyone,
I've had a few conversations lately about recycling content in games. By content, I am primarily looking at map reuse.
For example, in most Pokemon ROM hacks, the player tends to need to revisit the same towns and routes time and time again with new events occurring every once in a while. One notable hack that has the player backtracking constantly like this is Ruby Destiny - Life of Guardians. I can see the appeal of this approach: it sort of forces the player to become more accustomed to the region that's been created and adds more gameplay time to the finished result. It's also a little more realistic in terms of plot--not everything important that happens in an area happens all at once.
The other side of the coin is to not recycle much content or to incorporate very little backtracking, maybe exclusive to postgame matters. One notable hack that has the player continuing forward pretty much the whole time (until postgame) is Vega. I can see the appeal of this as well: every time the player reaches a new area, they can be sure that interesting things are bound to happen. A drawback I see is, once the player wraps up an area's events, that area is essentially lifeless for the rest of the game.
I don't have a solid opinion on this and I'd like to know what you all think... I don't actually play video games very often anymore, so I can't really draw from any current trends going on.
What do you think?
I've had a few conversations lately about recycling content in games. By content, I am primarily looking at map reuse.
For example, in most Pokemon ROM hacks, the player tends to need to revisit the same towns and routes time and time again with new events occurring every once in a while. One notable hack that has the player backtracking constantly like this is Ruby Destiny - Life of Guardians. I can see the appeal of this approach: it sort of forces the player to become more accustomed to the region that's been created and adds more gameplay time to the finished result. It's also a little more realistic in terms of plot--not everything important that happens in an area happens all at once.
The other side of the coin is to not recycle much content or to incorporate very little backtracking, maybe exclusive to postgame matters. One notable hack that has the player continuing forward pretty much the whole time (until postgame) is Vega. I can see the appeal of this as well: every time the player reaches a new area, they can be sure that interesting things are bound to happen. A drawback I see is, once the player wraps up an area's events, that area is essentially lifeless for the rest of the game.
I don't have a solid opinion on this and I'd like to know what you all think... I don't actually play video games very often anymore, so I can't really draw from any current trends going on.
What do you think?